Noah Syndergaard Will Officially Get Opening Day Start

According to multiple reports, New York Mets manager Terry Collins announced that right-handed pitcher Noah Syndergaard will be the Opening Day starter.

Syndergaard, 24, went 14-9 with a 2.60 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 10.7 K/9 and a major league leading 2.29 FIP in the 2016 season. He was an All-Star, finished eighth in the Cy Young voting and 19th in the MVP voting.

The Mets open the 2017 season at home against the Atlanta Braves at 1:10 PM on ESPN.

At just 24 years of age, Syndergaard took the reigns of the Mets’ rotation with ease in his second year in the big leagues. The hefty right-hander posted a 2.60 ERA over 183.2 innings pitched in 31 appearances. He struck out 10.7 batters per nine innings while walking just 2.1 He also limited opposing hitters to just 11 home runs, finishing the year with a league-leading 0.5 HR/9 rate.

Syndergaard came up huge in the Wild Card playoff game this past season, tossing seven shutout innings against the Giants, allowing just two hits while striking out 10.

The young ace has already proven he can pitch on a big stage. He now owns a 2.42 ERA over 26 big league postseason innings, over which he has struck out an incredible 36 batters.

The Mets will begin the 2017 season on April 3 at Citi Field against the Atlanta Braves.

Connor O'Brien is a third-year economics student at Rutgers University, a longtime writer here at MetsMerized Online, and an aspiring economist. He embraces sabermetrics but also highly values scouting. Follow him on Twitter at cojobrien.